


The Vise

by pink_ink



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, memories of violence and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pink_ink/pseuds/pink_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As always, I like to be vague and let it unfold. There are somewhat veiled but creepy undercurrents of violence. </p><p>Most of it is late s4. </p><p> </p><p>I'm on tumblr: palepinkgoat</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Vise

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I like to be vague and let it unfold. There are somewhat veiled but creepy undercurrents of violence. 
> 
> Most of it is late s4. 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm on tumblr: palepinkgoat

When Mickey first saw it, that age he can’t remember, it was hanging up in the cupboard with all The Shit in it. It hung on a warped hunk of pegboard someone found in the garbage, shoved in there to hang the little things on. Stuff they didn’t want lost somewhere, in the dust and junk below. 

For the longest time, he didn’t even know why it was in the cupboard with all the hardcore shit. Then, one day, Terry came back with it in a thin white grocery bag, the words THANK YOU printed, red, overlapping, over and over and over. 

“Clean this,” Terry huffed out. He tossed it with a sharp, uneven _thunk_ on the kitchen table. Mickey put the bowl of cold spaghetti down, washed it down with beer, took a peek inside the bag. 

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey had said, letting the bag slip closed again. 

Terry had taken a step forward, glanced down at the bowl. “What’d you just say?” So close. So close. “What did you say to me? You too much of a pussy? Turn your stomach while you’ve got all this food here? What the hell am I supposed to eat? Where’s Mandy?” 

Mickey shrugged. “Dunno.” He sat down, eyes on the label of his beer bottle instead of the bag. 

Terry picked Mickey’s bowl up, shoved food into his mouth, smirking. Mickey looked away. Terry laughed, leaving Mickey with the bag and the gore and this thing he doesn’t know how to work, how to clean. “You clean it. And then you clean it again. That thing rusts on me, I’ll fucking--” 

Mickey stood, fast like he knew Dad wanted him to. He went for the sink, that sour rag bunched like a fist underneath old dishes. Grabbed it, wrung it out, stomach turning. He remembers his voice, trying to steady. “I got it, Dad.” 

Terry walked away, didn’t look back. “Fuckin better.” 

 

How old was he, then? He doesn’t remember. 10? 11? 12? It’s hard to tell.Probably not any older than that. Definitely not 14, because by then he’d cleaned it a few times. There are spots in his memory that he doesn’t remember. He knows why. 

Now. There’s something. Something that makes him remember. Not this.The thing that reminds him of it is not the way that thing looked inside the bag, the long part in the middle grooved like fingers exposed and rattling like a broken bone. Always difficult to clean. Deep. Always bloody and full of skin or little white bits, hair, something else. Something Mickey never wanted to know, never asked about.

 

What he tries to remember most is the way that thing looked when he was finished, Shining. Clean. It never rusted. It was oiled and blameless in his hands, every violent secret erased. He remembers swinging the bolt shut, letting the grooves fall shut, a fist closing. The head almost closed all the way, leaving a tiny gap like a mouth open. The feeling of relief. A sigh. A shifted jaw, eyes pressed closed, breathing hard. Breathing out the red and the white and The Things. Every time. Cleaning it again. Again. Pulling his mind back to only This, not That. To this safety, this clean heavy weight under his fingers. Before it was dirty again. Always again.

 

The thing is called locking pliers. There’s a bolt. It opens wide, sliding, adjusts. It pinches. It pulls. It pulls closer and closer, holds steady and hard. Vise Grip. Locking Pliers. Vise Grip. It could build things. It could help. Mickey repairs it in his hands, tries to clean it. Terry destroys it, over and over. It’s not the pliers’ fault. Not really. It’s just that, over and over. Trying to wipe clean, over and over. Trying to hold it together. Hide.

 

There’s only one other thing that reminds him of that. Not the parts that scare him, even now. Never that. Never, ever that. Not the gore and the blood and the fear.

 

It’s the heavy weight pressing against him, Ian’s grip moving the hinges in his body, pressing deep, steadying him when his mind falters. It’s this. It’s Ian’s hands on him. Ian’s long hands on him. Both hands holding him in one place in particular, a place he never knew would make him gasp so fucking hard. Holding him so tight, both hands, right there, hard and sure and heavy. Pressing and pressing and pressing. Mickey’s mouth wide open, clean.

There had been other dudes. There were. Not a lot, but enough to know he was right in feeling all this shit. Others, but no one had done that to him. No one had held him like that. No one had made him gasp like that, just with hands falling there, holding there. Even Gallagher hadn’t done that for the first few times. Not like that. Not at all like that. Then one time, one time with Ian behind him, Ian’s hands swung closed around his hips. Hard. So much harder than before. A different way than before. _God. Oh God._

Mickey’s head had flown back, surprised. He found himself breathing so hard he fought the urge to stand up, to twist. Not to escape. He wanted to press against him, his back to Ian’s chest, slow and waving like the sea. But it would have been harder for Ian to hold him, and god did he want to be held. _Ian. Harder. God._ His hands. His fuckin hands.

Ian had leaned forward, pressed his mouth just below Mickey’s ear. Mickey closed his eyes. Clean. Blameless in Ian’s hands. This was back when Mickey hadn’t kissed Ian yet. But God, with this, with this, he had really fucking wanted to. 

Ian’s breath, low and still, but almost shy “You like that, Mickey? You like me holding your hips like this?” He pressed his fingers harder. 

Mickey nodded, leaning his back against him. 

Ian’s breath stuttered. He adjusted his hands. It wasn’t a grab, not something simple. It was pointed. There. There. Lower, wider, higher. His hands spanning Mickey’s hips, pressing and shifting. “D’you like this better?” 

Mickey groaned. He licked his lips but couldn’t speak. Ian smoothed his hips slowly with this thumbs, shifting down, pressing his last two fingers against him, finding the pubic bone, pressing slowly, but deep. Mickey’s head fell forward. His legs shook. “Fucking A, man. Fuck. Fuck.” 

Ian had gone so slow, so slow, that time. Letting them both adjust to this New Thing, letting it build. Mickey was so hard, Ian so full inside him. He held his mind there, tied to that fullness. That heavy grab of Ian’s hands. His cock. Fuck. 

Mickey whispered to his fists, hoping the thin, scattered sound would rise above him, hoped it would rise to Ian’s ear. 

It had. _Pound my ass. Keep grabbing my hips like that. Pound my ass._

There had been a time where that would have been pushy and made one of them laugh. They were still so young. It was kind of funny, sometimes. Mickey being Mickey. Ian being Ian. Pushing and pushing. New at this. At them. 

This had been something else. New. So soft, so hard. Mickey’s hands opening and closing against what was below them. Ian’s hands steady and full on him, Ian inside him, full and perfect. Mickey gasped again, and came. 

 

Terry started finding things. Metal things. “Clean this.” Mickey did. Had to. 

It felt like a test. Some were rusty. Rusty metal tools. Terry would stare at him. Stare at him. Mickey would swallow. Steel wool. Turpentine. Kerosene. Finally, the only thing, the explosive thing, the combo thing that works, but wafts fumes into the air. Bleach. Vinegar. Dangerous. No one should do it, but it works. Mickey did it once, inside the house. His head spun, then pulled it outside in a cardboard box. Thin white grocery bags shoved into the bottom. Red print blurring Thank You Thank You Thank You. Terry got home. “What the fuck is this shit.” And there were fists, then a space of nothing. Rust. Gone. 

 

That was long ago, and so was that other thing and that other thing. Mickey combs his memory. He skids over the broken parts, that day and that day and that day. The time the bolt almost rusted. The times he got away. The time he was forced to stay. The times he let go, the times he couldn’t. Mickey floats on the things that steady him, over and over. His feet land against something soft, over and over. He tries to land there. It’s so hard to land there, sometimes. 

 

So, it feels like a long fucking time. A long time since Ian’s been inside him, like this, right now. This little room is empty, for once, just beds and beds. The house is empty, some scent of the Gallagher house that marks it as theirs. Mickey loves that smell, loves the smell of breakfast and coffee and shoes piled up by the stairs. Loves the smell of the couch and the whisper of heads that have been there. Loves the thin hallway, the confusing perfume smells from Debbie’s room. Smoke from Lip’s. Fiona from Fiona’s. He loves the weird smell that meets in a crash by the stairs. Loves the doors that slam and shutter shut without someone about to break through to punch, reaching for blood, for things he never wants to see again. 

He loves the smell of Ian above him, right now, his skin deep and damp and sweet, the space under his arms thick and perfect. Loves Ian’s lips pulling and gliding against his neck. Loves Ian's legs between his. Loves the way his own thighs cradle Ian’s hips, feet slipping low against his back. Loves Ian inside him, always.

Slipping too low against his back. Mickey shifts. “Fucking touch me,” he breathes. Ian thrusts into him deep and slow, and yeah, Mickey’s getting that spot brushed, but. 

Ian groans. “You feel so good, Mick. So good. Fuck.” His head dips to Mickey’s shoulder, pressing his forehead against Mickey’s shoulder. Presses into his shoulder. Fuck, he’s just going to press around all slow and come. Nope. Not happening.

Mickey pushes the outside of his arm against Ian’s chest. “Get up here.” 

Ian chuckles, stares into his eyes so hard Mickey falters a second. Then he’s back. Mickey twists his hips up. Ian responds with a slow dip down. Mickey’s legs open wider, accepting, second-guessing this shit. But wait. Wait. 

Mickey swallows. “ _I said,_ ” he says, not looking away. “I said I need you to fucking touch me.” 

 

There was one time Mickey had to clean out that stupid cabinet. Iggy had pulled the old warped pegboard out for some fuckin reason and it was a fuckin mess. Thank god Terry was gone. Iggy lit up and shrugged. Mickey had pulled it out, the fear automatic, looking over his shoulder. 

Guns and guns and guns. Knives with sharp blades and knives with dull ones Mickey was probably expected to sharpen. There were those vise grip pliers he knew like his hand, like both hands. The ones he’d touched so many times. Couldn’t even hold them. Not even for a minute. He dropped them, pushed them out of his view, kicked them down the hall. 

Then. And then, there, in the bottom of the cabinet. There. Right there. The same kind of pliers. The same kind. Brand new, but dusty. Unused. Perfect. 

Mickey’s stomach had lurched. He ran out the back, ran further. Hacked in the alley until his eyes watered. Came back in, found the peppermint Schnapps next to the sink, gargled. Spit onto some rag he would have used for cleaning that shit, before. 

He had blinked past the deep burning in his eyes. He shifted his jaw, slow and sure like that metal bolt. Went to find Gallagher. Had him hold his hips. 

 

Long-ass time ago. This is now. This is Mickey, hardly breathing, Ian pulling his legs up, sliding his arm low under Mickey’s back. He closes his eyes and wants, wants it to just be this, and he wants to be held, held down and grounded. 

Ian chuckles, “You want me to fucking touch you? What’m I doing right now?” 

Mickey’s hips buck. He closes his eyes, forces himself to pull down what he feels a second. “Get up.” 

Ian pauses, confused, “Like, in back? What--” 

Mickey winces, encouraging Ian to slip from him, annoyance a warm blanket, familiar. “Will you calm the fuck down?” 

Ian’s eyes close, he smiles. He lets Mickey push him onto his back. Mickey’s hands find Ian’s, slowly pulls them up, gliding and awkward. Those pliers, those pliers like their fingers, deep, locking and sliding up. Mickey feels Ian’s back arch. God he’s so good. He’s so fucking good to him. God he smells good. God this is good. Mickey aches to hold him inside again. He waits. He tries hard to wait. 

Mickey’s mouth drops to Ian’s chest. Ian’s arms up, his fingers sliding softly against the thin skin between Mickey’s. Mickey nuzzles in and breathes, drags his mouth soft against a nipple, then another. Ian pants, pleads. Mickey tries so hard to quiet his ears, steady himself. He pulls back, looks down at Ian, sees Ian’s eyes open slowly.

Mickey is so safe. It’s so scary to feel safe. He’s safe, now. He is falling and caught, over and over. Ian’s skin slides against his tongue. Ian is something deep in the ground, the smell of spring, heavy mulch against lilac busting open in every alley in June, overwhelming. But this. This Ian. He is his. He is so fucking beautiful. He smells so fucking good. Mickey breathes so deep. He wants Ian inside him, wants to feel the weight close in on him. His hips. His ass. His lips. Wants to feel himself clean, heavy, weighted. 

His hand reaches, finds the bottle, opens it, a soft squeeze. Getting ready. He feels Ian breath waver. For a minute he wants to say, _Relax, man, it’s not that. We’re not doing that. Relax._ But then there Mickey is. He’s pulling Ian, stroking him slowly, and he’s reaching back, on his knees, and he’s touching himself, low and open. He isn’t embarrassed, not ever. There he is, sinking down. His hands, like so long ago, wiping clean on the sheets. 

Ian’s eyes open, a long, drawn out fuuuuck. Mickey leans forward, straightens. He breathes _Touch me, touch me. Please, please, hold me. Hold me hard. Please._

And then there’s that. There are Ian’s long hands, so much stronger than when they first began, holding him so hard, thumbs dipping so low, squeezing in a way that makes his hips, his thighs, his body cave in on itself. Mickey pulls up, shaking, pressing his hand near Ian’s head, pressing hard into the sinking mattress. His other hand swiping over Ian’s chest, just a little. He doesn’t know what to do with that hand. He’s panting too hard. Ian should have a pillow under his back, but there’s not time, not now. 

“You,” Ian breathes. “Touch yourself. Touch you.” 

Mickey’s hard runs down his chest, his nipples, a sigh. Ian gasps, slowing, pressing lighter. There is sun coming in the window next to them through the blinds, sliding light over Ian’s body. What time is it? It’s 10, 11, 12 maybe. It’s hard to tell. The thought is there, and gone. 

Mickey lets his hand drop. “Fucking hold me hard and fuck me, or I’m pulling off you.” 

The words are hardly out of his mouth before Ian is fucking hard into him, one hand on his hip, one on his back. “No,” Mickey says, “Not like that.” He drops the free hand down to Ian’s chest, rides him two, three, four times, so slow and deep. Ian groans. 

Mickey says, “I’m serious. This is all you’re getting. Grab my hips or I’m climbing off.” His mouth is so full of breath. They both know he doesn’t mean it. 

Ian’s eyes drag open. His fingers close in so hard, so hard. God, so fucking hard, harder than ever. Mickey’s head is thrown back. God it’s good to be loud, let things be sweet and familiar and clean and sticky. So hard and shining against Mickey’s chest, full and deep. Ian’s fingers falter and tremble. His eyes are wide and beautiful. 

 

If you care for it right, tools will last for years. Depends what it’s made of, but pretty much. But when Mickey flings that old vise grip pliers over the walls of that broken old building, the building where his face hurt so bad, bruises so fresh and scary, his arms shaking all the time, stomach lurching all the time, he didn’t know that. He had carried it up there, carried it up with that gun. Gallagher came up, wanted to see if he was okay. He wasn’t okay. He threw up all the time. He didn’t know why. He wanted to tell him. He couldn’t. 

Those locking pliers, the ones Mickey cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, like it would make him safe. It didn’t. It never would. Mickey stood up there, in that busted building, looked out on all the broken shit out there. Bricks and plaster and bottles and nothing. He threw that fucking pliers out there, some bum to gather it for scrap metal. There was nothing to protect anymore. 

 

There is no pain. Not ever. Not with this. There’s nothing, even when it’s bad. It’s not bad like he knew, then, the cold in his hands, afraid. There is nothing except this. Nothing except the air in his mouth, dry from moaning. Nothing except Ian’s fingers, Ian’s face, his eyes, his mouth saying words Mickey can’t hear. The smell of him, of them, of this. He presses down on Ian so hard. They are pressed so hard. There is nothing deeper than this, but they try. Ian’s hands drop to graze up to Mickey’s back. Mickey shakes his head slowly, glides his fingers into Ian’s, clearing out the deep fear of the grooves in that metal. He guides Ian’s fingers back to his hips, fingertips light and dragging. Ian presses his thumbs in again, lower, and Mickey’ s mouth clamps shut. 

Ian’s breath. The winter sun through the window, sliding on Mickey’s shoulder. Ian’s breath. “Let it out,” he says. He releases his grip until Mickey squirms. "Let it out.” He presses against him, hard. “Please. Please.” 

Mickey’s eyes fly open. His chin pulls to the ceiling. He does not hear the sound that comes from him. It is somewhere. Somewhere nothing can reach. He can feel Ian’s hands. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Ian finds Mickey's hand, presses it to his chest. Pushing down. Grounding him. God, does he need that. And his eyes burn knowing Ian knows that. Ian. Fuck. Ian pushes up hard, shakes. Mickey presses and presses down like Ian’s hands. He gasps like he did that first time, a surprise. Comes. 

 

What Mickey wants is this: the air in his lungs releasing and releasing, over and over, his eyes barely opening, dropping to Ian’s face. Seeing Ian smile so slow, like he always has. What he wants is the thick deep scent of them, rising and rising, falling and falling, like the metal he threw over his head, bruised fists, bruised face and sore lungs, crying, flying so far past what he remembers of the life he was bound for. What he wants is this: his lips against Ian’s, healed and soft, breaking apart and meeting again like that metal, that bottle, that life, clattering against broken places, the sound an echo, over and over, cracking open like their hips do, shattering all the way down.


End file.
